Volume 22December 2017

The

HistoryOUR HISTORY

Henry David Thoreau once wrote: “It is the province of the historian to find out, not what was, but what is.” As custodians of the past and keepers of the public memory, we strive every day to collect, preserve, and ensure access to the raw materials of our history. We do this so historians and others can indeed discover “what is” by studying “what was.” For while we certainly live life forward, it is equally true we understand it backward. To lack access to evidence of the past is to suffer from a cloudy understanding of the present as well as the future. With the lead article in this year’s Pine Bough, Emily Hyatt presents a compelling case for preserving our community’s church records, which for one reason or another have been neglected. From the Caddoan peoples, to Spanish missionaries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to nineteenth century Protestant settlers and twentieth century city builders, worship has been significant in our history, as Emily ably contends. So, we are hoping in the coming days to better collect and preserve our region’s church histories, just as we continue our core mission to document all experiences and communities, as you will learn more in our news and notices section. Also, as the assistant editor of the Pine Bough, Emily prepared more content in this year’s issue than in any other, so a heartfelt thanks to Emily!

On a personal note, I turned 50 this past August, and am now a half-century old. To celebrate the occasion, my wife Jill carried us to Concord, Massachusetts, the natural

history and literary land of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the Revolutionary War “shot heard round the world.” We hiked around and swam in the deep, cool, clear waters of Walden Pond, hiked a number of trails through various wetland and forested conservation lands, visited historic libraries, battle grounds, cemeteries, and even saw the eclipse from the front yards of the historic Alcott and Hawthorne homes. We saw a new land, for it was our first time to see and walk the rocky New England landscape. The pines were different, it being white pine country, but many of the hardwoods and the understory plants were familiar. I especially enjoyed seeing the giant sycamores and distinctive cardinal flowers—old friends while away from home. Reflecting on this past year and expectantly looking forward to the next, I wish all of you great joy. May you, our patrons and donors, be as richly blessed as you have blessed us.

With warmest regards,

Jonathan K. GerlandDiboll, Texas

Jonathan K. GerlandExecutive Director

1. The grave of Henry David Thoreau, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, MA.2. Cardinal flowers at the confluence of the Sudbury and Assabet rivers forming the Concord River.3. Inside the Thoreau Reading Room at the Concord Free Public Library.4. Reading Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, or Life in the Woods on the shore of Walden Pond, on the morning of my 50th birthday.

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FEATURES

Angelina County Churches: Preserving Their Legacies 2 By Emily Hyatt

The Landrum Family’s Fastrill Photo Collection 12 By Emily Hyatt

Lufkin Industries Collection Update 18

SECTIONS

Scrapbook Pages Lufkin Industries Musicians 28 Goat Carts 29 Angelina History Harvest 30-33 National Forests and Grasslands of Texas 34-35 Diboll School Expansions 36-37 Sheffield - White City, Texas Collection 38-39 Transportation 40-41

News & Notices 42-45

THE PINE BOUGHVol. 22 December 2017ISSN: 1529-7039A history magazine published annually by The History Center, Diboll, Texas.

Jonathan K. Gerland, EditorEmily E. Hyatt, Assistant Editor

Unless otherwise noted, all images herein are from the holdings of The History Center.

© Copyright 2017 by The History Center. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this issue or any portion of it is expressly prohibited without written permission of the publisher.The History Center102 N. TempleDiboll, TX 75941

phone: (936) 829-3543www.TheHistoryCenterOnline.com

CONTENTS

Staff:Jonathan K. Gerland, Executive DirectorEmily E. Hyatt, ArchivistPatsy Colbert, Assistant ArchivistLouis Landers, Archival AssistantAllison Grimes, Archives ProcessorAshlee Cole, Saturday Research AssistantKayla Cordova, Saturday Research Assistant

The History Center Committee:Ellen Temple, ChairJonathan Gerland, Executive DirectorKathy SamplePete SmartSally MacherKatherina CragerGerry Boren

Kathy Sample, Chair, Board of Directors,T. L. L. Temple Memorial Library & Archives

About the cover:Front: A grove of young pines glow in the yellow morning sun as the moon sets behind them, at Rayville in the Boggy Slough Conservation Area, Trinity County, in September 2017. Photo by Jonathan Gerland.Back: A blooming, buck deer-scraped dogwood tree graces a short leaf pine-hardwood mixed forest in the Boggy Slough Conservation Area, Trinity County, in March 2017. Photo by Jonathan Gerland.

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Jim Knox’s 1986 bronze sculpture depicts Hasinai Caddo Indian woman Angelina, along with a Spanish priest and a Hasinai man. Spanish priests brought Christianity to East Texas and founded missions in order to convert the local Caddo tribes. Angelina, who helped the Spaniards and later the French, gave her name to the river and the county.

Angelina County Churches: Preserving Their Legacies

By Emily E. Hyatt

When the Spanish friars entered what is now Angelina County in the 1690’s, they brought with them an element that would be part of the area’s life to the present day. Though those Franciscan missionaries would not be successful in their twin goals to start thriving mission outposts that would win the native peoples to Christ and build a bulwark against French and English (later American) incursions into Spanish territory, they did lay the groundwork for other Christians who would follow. It should be noted that these Christians were not the first to bring religion into East Texas, as the Caddo peoples who populated the forests and fertile prairies of this area also had their own religion and rituals and sacred places. These people groups left no written records and so scholars are forced to make educated inferences about their spiritual practices, which were strong enough that they did not feel

obligated to convert to the message preached by the friars. The religious history of Angelina County shows that the people who settled here valued church attendance and religious instruction from the very earliest days of their settlements. Whether through private family devotions or community gatherings under an arbor with a visiting evangelist, the people of Angelina County expressed their faith and gathered to worship even before the establishment of formal congregations or the construction of dedicated church buildings. As settlements grew into communities and towns, worshippers began constructing church buildings. Led by lay leaders and itinerant preachers from various faith traditions, these congregations sometimes belonged to particular denominations and sometimes did not. It was not uncommon for more than one denomination to meet together, worshipping in the style of whichever preacher was in attendance that week. In

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Diboll’s unified church met in this community building during the beginning of the 20th century. Both the Methodists and Baptists met on the first floor, rotating between the denominations according to which circuit preacher was in town. In general, parishioners of both denominations attended all of the services, not just their preferred one. Other community groups met in this building as well. The lodge hall was upstairs.

the earliest days of the county’s settlement, these buildings became the anchor for each surrounding community, for spiritual and secular gatherings – especially in the very rural, very scattered farming communities. Church buildings were used to host community events, voting, and even school, as evidenced by the 1885 Angelina County School Registration book, which lists the county’s schools, their trustees, and their meeting place (either already established or planned). Sixteen of the fifty-five schools were to meet in a church or chapel building. One of Homer’s schools met in the Baptist church, Pine Grove School met in the Pine Grove “Church House,” and Ryan’s Chapel School met in the Ryan’s Chapel Church, among others. Angelina County’s towns also formed strong ties to and through their churches. Diboll’s churches were valuable assets to the community and Southern Pine Lumber Company recognized their importance by encouraging the organization of the Methodist and Baptist Churches, who met together for a time in a unified church. T.L.L. Temple asked Fannie Farrington and her family to join him in Diboll and

tasked her with, among other things, the cultural development of his town and its people. She started and supported several Sunday School programs to aid in the spiritual development of Diboll’s children. The churches were gathering spots and community foci for all of Diboll’s ethnicities, and Diboll’s African American churches were especially active in the holistic development of their members and citizens, working closely with the H.G. Temple School. The Union Church, pictured in a 1907 photo from The History Center’s collections, provided a space for two of Diboll’s earliest congregations to worship. It also served as a space for community gatherings; the Woodmen of the World and Knights of Pythius met upstairs. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, both the Baptists and the Methodists supplied ministers to their rural churches through a circuit of itinerant preachers. The congregations would meet together each week, hearing a service from whichever denomination was in town that Sunday. They also relied on lay

(Narrative continues on page 6)

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The Strauss class at Diboll’s Methodist Church in the 1930’s. Some of those identified are: front row left to right: Laddy Hogue, Clyde Thompson, P. H. Strauss, Thompson Broker, Lon Smith, Rev. Avery. Middle Row 7th from left: Mr. Willey, unknown, unknown, Ike Green, Will Agee, Walter Broker.

The early Diboll school publication the Pine Leaf was a short and informative newspaper that highlighted student accomplishments and school events. It was also a way for school administration to communicate rules and expectations, including this clipping from March 5, 1928, that informs students and parents that first graders who attended Sunday School would have their names recorded in order to encourage Sunday attendance at church. In Diboll’s early days, officials saw church attendance as an act of civic as well as religious duty.

Shiloh Singing Group, ca. 1950’s.

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Garland Picou, President of St. Patrick’s Parish Council (center), Rev. James Jacobson, MSEV, pastor, (left) and Rev. Thomas Nolan, MS, assistant pastor, check on the

progress of the renovation of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church as the parish prepared to celebrate its 50th anniversary on

March 17, 18, and 19, 1978.

A Vacation Bible School assembly at Diboll’s First Baptist Church, ca. 1950’s.

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preachers from among their membership. Diboll’s Southern Pine Lumber Company had recognized from its beginning that supporting the spiritual health of its employees would encourage families to settle in their town and help with the stability of a sometimes-mobile workforce. First United Methodist Church recalls that its earliest members met at the sawmill as early as 1897, using stacks of lumber for pews. The Union Church, built on company land with company resources was a way for the company to encourage the growth of religious institutions in Diboll. By 1914, the Methodists were meeting in their own building and the Baptists acquired land in 1915, building a church in the early 1920’s. Both churches have been recognized by the state of Texas with historical markers, drawing attention to their sustained, important impact on Diboll’s development. The county is home to many other Protestant faith traditions, with Pentecostal Churches, Assemblies of God, Christian Churches, Lutheran

Churches, Presbyterian Churches, and independent non-denomination churches, among others, all serving the needs of the county’s Christian residents. Although records are not available for most of the early churches, it seems that the Stanley Creek Methodist Church in the Ora community and Ryan Chapel United Methodist Church were among the first congregations to build church buildings, doing so in the middle 1860’s. Though Protestant churches now outnumber Catholic churches in Angelina County, the seeds planted by the early Spanish missionaries are still growing. The county has three active Catholic parishes – the oldest is St. Patrick’s in Lufkin, which began at the end of the 19th century and became a permanent parish with a resident priest in 1928. In 1971, it started a mission church in Diboll, and Our Lady of Guadalupe is now a thriving parish. Lufkin’s St. Andrew the Apostle Catholic Church began in 1998 to meet the needs of the county’s growing Catholic population. Lufkin is also home to

The congregation of Diboll’s First Pentecostal Church in front of their building, ca. 1944.

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Perry Chapel’s Senior Choir, ca. 1950’s.

The Ryan Chapel Methodist Church.

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the Monastery of the Infant Jesus, home to over 20 cloistered Dominican nuns. Even today, Diboll’s churches stand as spiritual and cultural outposts, providing religious services, community outreach programs, financial aid, and participants in community events. Diboll’s Christian Outreach is supported by the city’s churches and run by local Christians who desire to meet the needs of their fellow community members. Twice a year, Diboll’s community organizations and churches join with local businesses to provide a festive lunch for the senior citizens of the city. From Vacation Bible Schools to fundraisers to participation in community services and events, the churches of Diboll are an integral part of the community. As part of our mission to collect, preserve, and make available the history of Angelina County, The History Center seeks to collect the archival resources from all aspects of our history. Business records, school records and photos, county and town records, family collections, and the papers of civic groups all help to show the activities of the people who made our county what it is today. The county’s churches and religious organizations are just as influential and

as such, their records are needed in the archives to allow us to tell the full story of the county’s history and preserve it for the benefit of future generations. The History Center holds some church records and hopes to encourage other churches and church members to donate their records to The History Center. First United Methodist Church of Diboll has long maintained a collection at The History Center. James Snarr and Becky Donahoe have ensured that this church and its members are included in the archives. Their photographs and scrapbooks and records document church life, but also help record and preserve the culture of Diboll. Do you have church records or church program records and photos you would be willing to donate to The History Center? We can’t tell this part of our history or help others to learn from these stories without the records and photos. Help us preserve the full history of our area by including the records of Angelina County’s churches. Staff would love to speak with church representatives about preserving this part of our past.

The congregation of Shiloh Baptist Church listens attentively during a Sunday worship service, ca. 1960’s.

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Burke Methodist Church.

Members of the Shiloh Baptist Church Usher Board. From left to right: Justice Clark, Lloyd Triplett, Fannie Jackson, Lizzie Odom, Bessie Henderson, Levy Smith, Roosevelt Davis, Earl Washington, ca. 1960’s.

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This 1957 advertisement from the Diboll News-Bulletin was part of a regular weekly advertising feature in the paper. Sponsored by various local business – small and large, the ads encouraged church attendance and focused on its benefits to children, families, and the community as a whole.

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Professor Jackson’s Church Choir, ca. 1951.

A photo from the Lufkin Industries photograph collection shows Lufkin’s St. Cyprians Episcopal Church in Lufkin, TX decorated for Easter 1935. The sanctuary is now part of the Museum of East Texas.

Members of Lakeview Baptist Church in the 1978.

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The Landrum Family’s

Fastrill Photo Collection

By Emily E. Hyatt

In July, 2017, Mike White allowed The History Center to digitize fifty-five photographs from his mother’s days growing up in the Fastrill Logging Camp. Southern Pine Lumber Com-pany’s longest running camp, 600 people called Fastrill home at its busiest time. The camp began in 1922 and atypically for logging camps, the company did not close

Fastrill until 1941. In its 19 years of existence, families established the little town in the woods of western Cherokee County as their home, using the company store, living in company houses, going to school and church, raising vegetable patches and livestock, and celebrating holidays and birthdays. Audrey Nelda Lan-drum’s family was one such Fastrill family and these photographs are a small glimpse into their life in Fastrill.

Margrett Chyrma, Beatrice Pitts, Shirley Ann Evens, Madell Pitts, and Audrey Nelda Landrum pose in Fastrill with their baby dolls.

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Audrey Landrum, center, holds her birthday cake as she and her friends celebrate her 8th birthday in January 1939 in the Fastrill logging camp. All of these children would have gone to school and church together and their families would have lived near one another in the close-knit Fastrill camp. Former Fastrill residents fondly recall their childhood in Fastrill, and once the company moved them to Diboll, they remember having to adjust to the larger town and the bigger school.

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Teenage Audrey Nelda Landrum poses on the front porch. She is listed in the 1947 and 1948 Diboll High School Annuals as a Sophomore and Junior, respectively, involved in many activities, including Secretary of the Future Homemakers of America and as a reporter for the student newspaper, the Pine Echo.

Audrey Landrum and her pet dog and cat. Note the boxcar-style logging camp house behind her, as well as other buildings behind a high fence, next to the railroad tracks.

Chris Landrum (left) and Alvin “Big Daddy” Landrum pause during their work day with their crosscut saw. The woods around Fastrill were filled with pine and hardwood trees that were logged and sent to the mills in Diboll.

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Unidentified girl, dressed in her Sunday best, stands on a log ca. 1927. Note the stacks of logs behind her.

Unidentified field workers, probably cotton pickers, with their cotton sacks. Note the gloves they are wearing to protect them from the cotton plants. East Texas families often raised crops for cash even if they were involved in the lumber industry.

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A man stands on top of scattered logs in the midst of a wrecked log train that lost its load.

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Three unidentified men standing on large logs that await transfer to a sawmill. Using standard measurements and calculations, lumbermen could estimate how many board feet a certain log would make, and sometimes they labeled the logs with these expectations. The log on the end is marked 16 feet long and contains 961 board feet.

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An African American mule driver and his team pull a large log in the woods around Fastrill.

A woman and children pose by a worker in the woods near Fastrill in the 1930’s. Note his crosscut saw, double bit ax, and wedges.

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The Lufkin Industries Collection continues to be an exciting project for History Center staff and volunteers. Work on the collection brings new discoveries every day – whether an interesting photograph, records that illuminate a new part of Lufkin’s day to day workings, or an interview with a former employee that brings perspective to some part of the business or its relationship with Ange-lina County and its citizens. Processing continues on the original collection, with close to 350 hours spent rehousing, orga-nizing, and digitizing parts of the collection this year alone. Staff and volunteers are down to the last series and have begun tackling the several hundred thousand negatives that comprise around 12 cu-bic feet of the original donation. These negatives have been sorted and will be rehoused in the com-ing months. Damaged negatives or those made of combustible nitrate film have been digitized for preservation and separated from the collections so that the nitrate films will not cause a fire hazard in our storage vaults. A large portion of these negatives were made of more stable safety film that none-theless showed signs of a problem called vinegar syndrome, or acetate film base degradation. These negatives have been digitized and removed from the collections so that the vinegar syndrome doesn’t spread to other parts of the collections, but the images will still be preserved in the digital collections. As staff and volunteers continue to rehouse and catalog the last cubic feet of the collection, the archi-vist will complete the initial finding guide that will allow patrons to access the collection and open it for research. Once the finding guide is released, processing will continue, however. This has been a big project and staff will continue to refine the collection for years to come, describing some parts in more detail to better help researchers find what they are looking for. Though this will continue, the

Lufkin Industries Collection Update

One of Lufkin’s Liner Demo Vans sits outside its offices in Lufkin, TX.

The Trailer Division’s dry freight vans constituted the bulk of their business

and could be customized for a variety of freight transportation needs.

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initial stages are almost complete, with a goal of releasing the finding guide by the middle of 2018. The initial donation of Lufkin Industries materials makes up the bulk of the Collection, but community mem-bers, former employees, and representa-tives of the current owners continue to find Lufkin papers and memorabilia and donate them to The History Center. During 2017, the Center received papers concerning Martin Wagon Company’s sale of real estate in Lufkin, a beam from the original foundry, metal signs with the iconic Lufkin logo on them, memora-bilia from Lufkin’s centennial celebration year in 2002, photographs of executives and workers, and a collection of Lufkin Trailer photographs from long-time Lufkin employee Tommie Miller. Each of these donations adds to the History Center’s ability to preserve the history of Lufkin Industries and tell the story of the people who spent their lives and careers at one of Angelina County’s most important companies. Another component of preserving the Lufkin Industries story for future generations is oral his-tory interviews. Since acquisition of the collection in 2013, staff have interviewed Stephen Reynolds, Clayton Jircik, Jim Riggs, and Tommie Miller about their experiences working for Lufkin Industries. All four have offered thoughts on their careers, talked about their specific jobs, and reflected on changes in their industries during the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. History Center staff is compiling a list of potential interviewees and welcomes suggestions. Anyone who worked at Lufkin Industries or was connected to the company can help us preserve the story by allowing The History Center to record memories and reflections in an oral history interview. These interviews are digitally preserved and offered on The History Center’s website so that family mem-bers, researchers, and interested community members can listen to the audio and read the transcrip-tions. The latest interview coincided with Tommie Miller’s donation of photographs and papers related to his job in Lufkin’s Trailer Division. In just under an hour, Mr. Miller recalls growing up in Lufkin and starting out his career with the company as a blueprint operator and then spending his entire 36 years in that division. Moving from blueprints to the financial side of the trailer business, Mr. Miller was involved in all phases of manufacturing, from working with salesman to estimate prices for customers, managing supply inventory, assisting the designers as they developed efficient and cost-effective trailer parts, and handling billing with customers upon delivery of finished trailers. Mr. Miller’s photograph donation documents all phases of Lufkin’s Trailer Division, from its beginnings as Martin Wagon Company to a small division of Lufkin Industries to its large, state of the art facility that could manufacture 20-25 freight vans, 10-12 flatbed trailers, and 5-6 dump trailers a day. Developed in 1908, the Martin 8-wheeled log wagon became a staple in the lumber industry, and as the company grew, they developed other products – larger wagons that could handle oilfield equipment, school buses, and wagons that could be pulled by bulldozers or trucks, not just

A negative showing signs of vinegar syndrome. This negative was separated from the collection and scanned so that it will not infect any other film collections in the vault. The chemicals in the acetate film have begun to break down, giving off a tell-tale vinegar smell and warping and tearing the film and emulsion.

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In October 2017 The History Center received a small collection of documents relating to Martin Wagon Company’s history. The company hired C.V. Cozad to sell lots in the Martin Wagon Company addition in Lufkin. The lots are in what is now North Lufkin. Real Estate was a difficult business during the beginning of the Great Depression and many of the buyers who had so optimistically planned to purchase lots in 1929 were forced to default on their contracts by 1931.

mules or oxen. Martin Wagon’s business was a good fit with Lufkin’s – as they worked with sawmills and lumber companies in the early days, as they moved into the oilfield equipment business, and as they made gears for other machinery, the two companies could work together. As Martin’s financial situation became dire during the Depression, Lufkin’s executives gradually took over financial respon-sibility and management, and in 1939 Lufkin purchased Martin Wagon company outright. Manage-ment quickly integrated the two companies into what would become the Trailer Division. By 1961, Trailers had their own headquarters, but quickly outgrew it and in 1969, the Lufkin Trailer Division moved into a new, purpose built headquarters and manufacturing plant on the outskirts of the city on Lufkin’s east side. With its own rail siding (which went through the Lowery family’s property – wild game and all) the division could receive its supplies directly where they needed them in this over 300,000 square foot facility. All of the machinery was custom built for Lufkin trailers, including a

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A Martin Wagon Company four-wheel trailer for carrying swabbing machines and pumps. It was equipped with two-ton axles, Timken roller bearing, an all steel frame, and a ¼ steel plate platform.

paint booth and a machine that sewed the trailer roof to the sides with pencil-thick copper wire. The Trailer Division was an integral part of Lufkin’s business, carrying the company when other divisions struggled due to economic pressure and supporting other divisions when the freight transportation business struggled. In 2008, the Lufkin Industries board of directors announced they would close the Trailer Division due to economic pressure, thus closing a chapter of Lufkin History that began in 1908 with Martin Wagon Company’s innovative wagons. Selections from Mr. Miller’s photograph donation follow.

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Lufkin’s Trailer Division made more than trailers in its early history. One of their product lines included buses, like this one in production at the early Lufkin Trailer facility.

Two men and a monkey sit atop a large log on a Lufkin pole trailer.

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Demonstrating the close relationship between two of Angelina County’s most important companies, Diboll’s Southern Pine Lumber Company logs and lumber were carried through Lufkin’s Forest Festival parade on Lufkin Industries trailers. This particular image in the official Lufkin Industries archives suffered from vinegar syndrome at the time of The History Center’s acquisition of the collection, but thanks to Tommie Miller’s collection donation, the image survives undamaged and is now part of the larger archive.

A log hauler waits for his truck, fitted with a Lufkin pole trailer, to be loaded with logs.

Another one of Lufkin’s trailer lines was their livestock transporters. Nacogdoches Dairy Cow farmer J.L. McMillen shows off one of the transporters with members of the herd.

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Lufkin Trailers carried freight for many recognizable companies, including grocery chains HEB and Piggly Wiggly and Carnation Milk.

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Texas-made Lonestar Beer also used Lufkin Trailers.

An Exterior Post Aluminum Chip Trailer dumps its load at Diboll’s mill. These trailers

had an open top and a hinged back door, allowing chips to be blown in at one site and

then dumped at another site. This trailer is attached to one of Lufkin’s own trucks.

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Lufkin-made trailers in front of Lufkin Ice Company.

One of Lufkin’s flatbed trailers carries four other trailers from the Lufkin plant to their buyers. These trailers have features common of trailers used in the oilfield business. The roller on the back bumper allows heavy equipment to be pushed or pulled onto the trailer instead of lifted. The landing gear in the center of the trailer is collapsible, allowing the front of the trailer to be lowered when it is unhooked from the truck. Three of the trailers have had their tires removed so that the load stayed under highway height requirements.

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A flatbed trailer made for Dunn Transfer Company.

This 38-yard dump trailer is on display at a trade show. It was around 40-feet long. Lufkin salesmen would take one of each type of trailer product to trade shows in the Dallas Ft. Worth Metroplex and in Houston. The popular Rudolph the Red Nosed Pumping Unit Christmas display in Lufkin uses this type of trailer for Santa’s sled.

Scrapbook Pages

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During the middle of the 20th century, Lufkin Industries employees took every opportunity to celebrate good sales years and holidays. The annual Christmas parties were made more festive when they coincided with annual bonuses. In these two images from the Lufkin Industries Collection, employees celebrate the end of the year bonus in the 1950’s with a party complete with employee musicians. In photo one, Inez Tims, Jack Davis, Willie Lockhart, and Felton Purvis performed spirituals as part of a quartet. In image two, The Machine Shop Rhythm Makers played their tune "Bonus Party Boogie.” The group was made up of Grady Campbell, Ray Walker, Jimmy Freeman, Bill Love, and Rip Busselle.

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While today’s children enjoy go-carts and other motorized vehicles, children in the past relied on a much more organic, but maybe more obstinate power source. In image one, Lufkin native and future doctor Peyton Denman and another child sit proudly atop a cart pulled by a goat, ca. 1931. The cart and harness were made especially for “goat carting.” Diboll school teacher Elodie Miles included image two in her scrapbook. An unknown child happily poses on his goat cart in 1925.

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1. Ina Jane Thames brought a number of family photographs to be digitized, including this one of Burke Postmaster and Station Agent Daniel Bynum McCall. 2. David Bowers was proud to add several photos to the collection, including this one of the 1937-1938 Redland High School basketball team.3. Lufkinite Nina Duncan joined women across the country who went to work during World War II doing what had once been considered men’s jobs. This is her identity badge from her time at Lufkin Industries, ca. 1941-1945.

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On September 16, 2017, The History Center was proud to partner with Humanities Texas, the Museum of East Texas, TLL Temple Memorial Library, Kurth Memorial Library, Angelina College, Angelina County Historical Commission, and Angelina County Genealogical Society to bring the His-tory Harvest to Lufkin. Community members were invited to bring photos, documents, records, and films to be digitized and added to a community archive held at The History Cen-ter. These four pages are a small glimpse at some of the several hundred images that are now part of that collection, which will be preserved for future generations.

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Scrapbook Pages

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One of the first to bring her items to the History Harvest, Beth Folsom’s family collections included this photograph of her rela-tive Charles Fuller during World War I. Though the war offi-cially ended on November 11, 1918, members of the American Expeditionary Force were stationed in France for many months after. They were tasked with enforcing the peace, helping war refugees return home, and providing stability in war ravaged areas until the European powers could reestablish systems of government. The YMCA continued to provide care for these troops, offering respite and spiritual help, as well as physical relief from life in what was recently a war zone. Many of Fuller’s letters home were written on YMCA stationery.

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1. Martha Doggett brought this photograph of Lufkin’s Herty Elementary school teachers, ca. 1961. The teachers are unidentified – if you can help us identify them, please contact The History Center.2. and 3. One of Meredith Smith’s contributions to the History Harvest were these Berry family photos. The first photo documents the first flight from Lufkin’s Berry Field to Nacogdoches. Berry Field, which was located at Berry Farm a few miles northwest of Lufkin, was home to Lufkin’s first airport. Originally there were no regular services offered from Berry Field, but both passenger and mail service were eventually added as regular features in the 1920’s and 1930’s. In the next photo, Jim Eddy Berry (left) and his mother Minnie Junge Berry (right) stand among a heard of dairy cows.

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1. Thomas Moore’s family has been building roads and railroads and other construction projects in Angelina County and the surrounding areas for several generations. Here J.S. Moore, of J.S. Moore and Sons contractors, is seen 5th from right with employees at a railroad camp in Conroe, TX. Harmon Moore is seated reading the newspaper. 2. The Moore family also ran a filling station and garage in Lufkin along with the Spivey family. The facility offered full service for Lufkin’s early automobile owners, and could repair, wash, store, and fill their tanks.

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1. and 2. The National Forests in Texas have never been a monolithic block of uninhabited land. Forest lands intersect with privately held land, and especially during the early years of government ownership, long-time residents still resided on forest property and made their livelihoods in much the same way they had done for generations. A Forest Service photographer captured this photo (image one) of a man who lived East Hamilton weaving a basket out of white oak splints in the Sabine National Forest. The next photo (image two) shows an African American family’s home, what was known as a special use cabin in the Angelina National Forest in 1938.

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3. European settlers have crossed the areas now known as the National Forests and Grasslands of Texas since the 17th Century. East Texas was an important borderland between Spanish/Mexican Texas and French Louisiana. The first Spanish capital of Texas, Los Adaes, was so far east that it is in present day Louisiana. Remnants of the roads used by these settlers can still sometimes be seen in the forests where logging and other more modern activities have not changed the landscape. This 1938 photo shows what is believed to be a portion of El Camino Real in the Sabine National Forest.

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4. The National Forests in East Texas have always been connected to the lumber companies of East Texas, as

this 1950 photo of Temple Lumber Company’s Pineland, Texas mill shows.

The mill, which had the capability to produce 20 million board feet a year

was located on the edge of the Sabine National Forest and acquired some of

its saw logs from National Forest Lands after selling approximately 80,000 acres

to the Federal Government in 1935.

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1. Thirty years ago, Diboll Independent School District was growing and modernizing. This image shows the old wooden Diboll ISD gymnasium at the elementary school campus. The Timberline Constructors and Ronnie Markle tore down the building because the 49-year-old-facility was considered structurally unsound by school officials. Tearing it down also provided needed playground space. It was replaced with a new and modern multi-purpose building.2. School site search committee members view aerial maps of proposed high school sites in the Harris Street area during a meeting in 1987. Those attending the meeting included (clockwise, from bottom left) engineer Richard Vance, Diboll ISD Assistant Superintendent Dr. Billy Bowman, trustee Tommy Ard, Diboll ISD Superintendent Jim Dunlap, trustee Jack Beene and trustee Beauford Chapman.

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4. Also in 1987, a lumberjack was painted on the Temple Associates water tower in Diboll. Diboll Jack Backers President Alvin Fasske (right) and Houston Water Proofing President Kevin Knobloch (left) were proud of the collaboration between town and company.

3. Temple Junior High School also saw improvements and expansion in 1987. In this image, Timberline Construction workers were hard at work adding classrooms and cafeteria space.

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1. Southern Pine Lumber Company’s White City Lumber Camp lasted from 1915 to 1923 in San Augustine County. Ten-year-old Eb Sheffield leans on a lumber wagon, ca. 1915. 2. In image two, taken five to ten years later, SPLCo sawyers and brothers Joe (left) and Eb (right) Sheffield, pose with their crosscut saw and a large pine tree in the early 1920’s.

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3. It was not uncommon for logging families to have connections to other logging camps. This image shows a Mrs. Gardner and her children in the late 1930’s at the Redgate logging camp inside what is now the T.L.L. Temple Foundation’s Boggy Slough Conservation Area.

4. Chester Sheffield.

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1. Since 2017 is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Texas Highway Department, and with all of Angelina County’s troubles with road surfaces this year, it seems appropriate to showcase this article from the July 9, 1923 Lufkin Daily News. In it, state and local officials proudly herald the first asphalt sprayed on the Diboll Highway between Diboll and Lufkin. At that time, the road known in subsequent years as State Highway 35, US 59 and soon to be I-69 in Angelina County, was colloquially known as the Choctaw Trail. The asphalt was an improvement over the previous road surfaces and was a sign of transportation progress to Angelina’s citizens, especially the growing number with automobiles.

2. At the end of July, 1936, a group of “notables,” as the Lufkin Daily News called them, posed in front of the Texas Southeastern Railroad engine in Diboll after it arrived in town. The engine was burning Angelina County oil for the first time. The Ginter et al wildcat near Diboll provided the oil, which according to the News, was flowing in a “steady stream.”

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4. Workers install a bridge over Ellen Trout Lake that will carry the Z&OO Railroad across the water and around the park in 1976. Diboll’s Texas Southeastern Railroad helped construct the rail line and bridge. The Ellen Trout Zoo celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2017 and the railroad is one of its most popular attractions.

3. In September 1987, The Free Press ran a story on the new Federal Aviation Administration area service

center supervisor, Sandy Rathbun. Angelina County Airport’s pilots

might have been surprised to hear a woman’s voice over their radio, but

the paper assured them that she was an experienced air traffic controller,

with a recent stint in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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NEWS & N E W S & N O T I C E S

DIGITIZATION AND WEBSITE • The History Center’s website continues to be an effective tool for both access to collections and outreach to patrons and donors. We now average about 36,000 user sessions per year. Users view annually more than 118,000 webpages and download more than 500,000 pages of PDF files. • Staff has added over 600 items to the website in 2017, with more being added daily. This includes 155 PDFs containing minutes of the Burke Center and Pineywoods Mental Health Board meetings from 1974 to 1989 (approximately 3,600 pages), 42 pages (with more on the way) of Fannie Farrington’s scrapbook, 81 photographs from the Diboll High School Future Farmers of America Collection, 9 Central School Annuals (with more added daily), 6 PDFs containing 6 years of correspondence between Arthur Temple, Sr. and Arthur Temple, Jr. (more than 1,700 pages), Minutes of the Diboll City Council Meetings from 1962 to 1999 (more than 2500 pages), 16 of Ellen Temple’s articles on Diboll history from the Diboll Free Press, and 10 issues of the Lufkin High School Panther Growls from 1959-1960. • During the past year, staff and volunteers have scanned 615 photographs and negatives from the Lufkin Industries collections, more than 300 images from Fannie Farrington’s scrapbook, and thousands of pages of Diboll City records, Burke Center records, and school publications. These are all now available as digital images, even if they are not yet added to the website. • Staff added 17 images to the online exhibit IMAGINING TEXAS: AN HISTORICAL JOURNEY WITH MAPS, allowing website visitors to experience a portion of the physical exhibit. • News items on the website highlighted African American Oral Histories in February, women’s history resources in March, and helped visitors draw parallels between the Center’s collections and current events and

Ward and Annabelle Burke were the inspiration and driving force behind the founding of the Burke Center. They are shown here at a ceremony where Mr. Burke received the Mental Health and Mental Retardation’s Commissioner’s Award for Volunteer Service on August 11, 1978.

In January 2017, Burke, the region’s Mental Health Mental Retardation provider since 1975, donated six and a half cubic feet of records to The History Center. These records include annual reports, budgets, financial reports, newsletters, audits, and photographs of events at the Center. With the help of the Center’s founding director, Dr. Wayne Lawrence, Burke’s board of directors entrusted these records to The History Center, so they would be available for researchers and would ensure that the Center’s good works in the community would be preserved for future generations. This photo is a small sample of the records in the collection.

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commemorations, like the 100th Anniversary of the United States’ entry into World War I in April, the 50th anniversary of the Ellen Trout Zoo in June, and the Lufkin Little League All-Stars trip to the World Series in August. The news section also celebrated the Center’s inclusion in the designation of Angelina and Nacogdoches Counties as one of the Top Ten Bookish Destinations in Texas.

ACCESSIONS • There have been more than 40 archival accessions in 2017. These include more additions to the Lufkin Industries Collections, including a 13 ft. wooden beam from the original foundry, metal Lufkin signs, and .5 cubic feet of trailer division photographs donated by Tommie Miller. Bill Royle has donated items from the Lufkin High School class of 1960, including Panther Growls newspapers, photographs, and Lufkin Daily News articles. He has also donated a large collection of Royle and Mantooth family photographs. In January, the board of Burke donated 6.5 cubic feet of Burke Center records, facilitated by Dr. Wayne Lawrence. Donors also added to our collections of local garden club records, civic clubs, family, and school collections. • Staff and volunteers continue to give the Lufkin Industries Collection a priority in processing time and effort, spending more than 300 hours on the collection. In 2017 this included sorting the extensive negative collection to remove items that showed signs of vinegar syndrome, scanning them, and then destroying them so they did not spread the syndrome to other collections. The remaining 12 cubic feet of negatives are currently being rehoused and catalogued. This is the last step before staff can create the first finding guide for the collection and open it to the public for research. • Oral Histories included interviews with eight persons covering topics such as East Texas logging camps, Lufkin Industries’ Trailer Division, Temple-Inland hardwood forestry in the 1990’s,

Archivist Emily Hyatt and Director Jonathan Gerland speak with community members Joe Murray and Ina Jane Thames during the September History Harvest at the Museum of East Texas. Mr. Murray and Ms. Thames brought items from their family’s history to be digitized and added to a permanent community history collection.

Lufkin community member Beth Folsom works with local volunteers and Humanities Texas staff as they scan her family’s photographs to be added to the Angelina County History Harvest collection in September.

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NEWS & N E W S & N O T I C E S

the former Freedman’s Colony of Nigton in Trinity County, and the ghost town of Concord in Angelina County.

VISITORS, RESEARCHERS, TOURS, AND OTHER OUTREACH • The History Center welcomed some 4,600 onsite visitors in 2017, including 396 in-person researchers. Staff provided direct research assistance more than 1,400 times to off-site researchers, mostly by email. • Staff gave tours to various educational and community organizations from Diboll, Lufkin, Corrigan, Nacogdoches, Houston, and Kingwood, with special tours of the Mapping exhibit given to Stephen F. Austin State University geography students, Arthur Temple College of Forestry students, and the Angelina County Historical Commission. • The History Center hosted meetings of the Angelina County Historical Commission and the Diboll Historical Society. • Offsite programs included presentations to the Diboll Lions Club, Texas Forestry Association, Angelina Chamber of Commerce, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and the Lufkin Study Club. • Staff remained involved in and attended meetings of the Angelina County Historical Commission, Boys and Girls Club of Diboll, Texas State Historical Association, East Texas Historical Association, and the American Association of State and Local History. Staff also participated in the Angelina County History Harvest, a partnership between Humanities Texas and several local organizations. The History Center is the official digital repository of the images collected during the event. • This year Louis Landers was voted “Best of 75941,” sponsored by the Diboll Business Association, for his historical research assistance to the community above and beyond the call of duty.

On July 26, 2017, sisters Betty Bainbridge (left) and Helen Treat (right) visited The History Center and met Assistant Archivist Patsy Colbert (center) in person. Patsy has been helping

Ms. Bainbridge with research since 2006 as she tried to find her sister Helen. Thanks to Patsy’s diligence and knowledge of local records and history, the two sisters have been

reunited and they visited the Center to thank her in person.

Allison Grimes, a part-time Archives

Processor, began work in February while she

completes her Master’s degree in history at

Stephen F. Austin State University.

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Diboll’s 1st grade classes visited The History Center in May.

Diboll’s Housing Authority summer program students made their annual visit to The History Center on June 30. The staff always enjoys this group every summer.

Dr. Matthew McBroom’s summer forestry field class

from Stephen F. Austin State University’s Arthur Temple

College of Forestry toured The History Center in June.

In September, the Angelina County Home

Educators toured The History Center, and one

of the groups posed with Research Assistant

Louis Landers and Engine 13.

The Lufkin Little League All-Star Team, known as the “Thundering 13,” competed in the

Little League World Series as the Southwest Regional Champions in August 2017. The boys

from Angelina County won the United States Championship Game, beating the Southeast Regional Champions from Greenville, North

Carolina 6-5 on August 26. They fell to Japan the following day in the World Series Championship

Game, but returned to their adoring fans in Angelina County as U.S. Champions.

Members of the 1959 PONY GRAD World Series Championship team reunited in Lufkin this August, ending their tour at The History Center on August

22. Members of the team toured the Center and viewed items from Dr. Bob Ramsey’s photograph and scrapbook collection that documents their

championship season. From left the are: Leroy Wilkinson, Denny Marshall, Bobby Ramsey, Cue Boykin, Jerry Bate, John Collier, and Billy Karrh.

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